Bamboo: Great tool for a great price

Well, yeah… I know it’s not Mona Lisa but, hey, it was my first try. It deserves some credit, right?

Bamboo is marketed as the affordable and ‘fun’ drawing tablet for the recreational artist. At $79, they were right on the money with affordable. As for fun, I am having trouble putting the pen down.

The learning curve for using Bamboo is pretty low. If you know how to hold a pen, and have a semi-steady hand, there really isn’t much else to learn.

Installation is a piece of cake as well, essentially a plug ‘n’ play device. The pen can double as a mouse and the tablet can be used in leiu of the primary mouse. Every button is customizable, which makes it very convenient to the user. As you can probably guess, I have the second button on the pen set to Control-Z in order to quickly erase those all-too-common slips of the hand.

The box also comes with Adobe Photoshop and Corel Ink. Both are solid quality image softwares that should appease most users.

If you are looking to provide a little ‘something more’ for your patrons’ computer resources, Bamboo might just be an ideal purchase. As for programs, it is a great addition for any graphic novel club, Photoshop instruction, and even handy if you wanted to create a digital signature.

You might want to come up with some check-out or anti-theft attachment for the pen and mouse though, both could easily walk.

That said, I know exactly what new tech toy I am going to be pushing at my library.

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